Open primaries

South Carolina Republican officials don’t like a ruling made by U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs allowing open voting in primaries, the system that’s used in the state now and has been for decades. Under that plan, voters can choose which party’s primary they want to participate in from year to year. But lawyers for the GOP are asking Childs to examine whether that might be unconstitutional. Childs, in her earlier ruling, had said that if Republicans want to exclude people from their process, they could choose a new method such as conventions or petitions.